Wargame AD1407

would the pieces be representing whole armies or individual characters? And when you say buildable, would it be sticking different armaments and armor on the pieces or the base, or actually sticking flat figurines and makeshift cannons on a base for infantry and cannonadiers? or could put together a unit of germans and russian infantry with some mg 42 gunners.

I think it can be marketed as a Collectible, constructable war game where one can mix and match units for different stats and abilities. The audience would probably have to appeal to the young collectible cardgamer versus the hardcore mini-T wargamer. I don't know.

Based on my friends space game, the initial investment in a collectible card game is around 50 to 60 thousand dollars, if you find willing starving artists, and a cheap print shop. This doesn't include marketing costs, but that will be mostly time investment rather than monetary. Priced at 20 dollars a starter and 10 dollars a booster, you'll have to sell an equivalent of 3000 starters or 6000 boosters, to break even. (lookup third world games) Their starter pack was selling at $60 in the haydays, and only had to sell 1000 starter kits to break even. I don't think they made like bandits but I think it sold enough that they shortly followed with a few more series, and a few other card games.

Terrain will be sort of a crapshoot though, and also choosing an appealing theme to go with the gaming mechanism. I don't think there would be a problem with copyright infringement. Card stock based games are prevalent, car wars had makeshift card pieces, and so did a lot of other games back in the wargaming days.

just a quick thought,
johnny